Olympia Artesian Well

When I first moved to Olympia in 1981, there were several artesian wells in town, and learning about them helped me tune into the local environment. 

The Olympia brewery in Tumwater was running an advertising campaign that ascribed the beer’s quality to “the artesians,” portrayed as helpful gnomes or devas.

One artesian well was in front of the old Mark & Pak grocery store; it was paved over when the store was remodeled for BayView. The drinking fountain at the corner of 4th and Washington was artesian, and may be still. The Spar advertised its pure artesian drinking water. 

But the pipe that jutted from the asphalt in the middle of the parking lot near 4th and Jefferson was the best one to catch drinking water. With several gallon or five-gallon jugs, you could get a day’s supply for a communal household in a few minutes.

The access in the parking lot was contested for years; water advocates wanted to see the whole site made into a park, while the owners had no interest in parting with a valuable piece of real estate. Urged on by advocates, the city eventually came to a deal with the parking lot owners and acquired a portion of the lot for the Olympia Artesian Well. 

  

This beautiful mosaic art was added recently. The water flows at 10 gallons a minute, and it’s free. When I stopped by to take pictures on a brilliant, cold January day, the dude filling his jar saw me with my camera and asked, “Have you TASTED it?”  

It’s delicious. 

The Problem Is The Solution

 Permaculture could be described as a design philosophy that mimics nature in using the inter-relationships of many parts to create whole systems. A way of creating harmony and balance in the relationship between human beings and our environment. Perhaps a way of designing our way out of the Peak Everything crisis we  designed our way into.

These notes from Toby Hemenway’s permaculture class, sponsored by Seattle Tilth, serve as aphorisms and practices that could be applied to gardening, to art-making, to teaching, and to many other disciplines.

While the Problems Remain Complex, the Solutions are Remarkably Simple. 

We are creating models of creative regenerative systems…

Whatever the problem is, life has run into it before…

         Add organic matter!

 

  

We make sacred the things that nourish us.

Local Food - Chimacum

On our cider tour two weeks ago we were amazed & delighted by the local food culture center that has sprung up at the crossroads of Chimacum, Washington.

The first thing we found was the Farm's Reach Cafe -- diner style food made with local ingredients: beautiful soup, salad, sandwiches, and pastries. I don't think the chocolate was a local product, but most of the menu is.

The next day we found the Chimacum Corner Farmstand, which is full of lovely local stuff, and enough from beyond the immediate area to make dinner (pasta, wine, dessert). We wanted to try everything and bought a bunch of multi-color carrots in white, orange, and purple. 

The burgeoning local food movement shows the creative, determined, and optimistic ways that people -- especially young people -- are responding to our food-energy-climate crisis. Growing your own and eating local provide fresh and nourishing food. And support the local economy. And take money away from the industrial food system. And establish bonds between people and their land. And reduce the amount of toxins used on our food -- assuming that a lot of this gardening and farming is organic or no-spray. And help people learn about food, science, nature, botany, biochemistry, nutrition, and cooking. And encourage creativity in the kitchen! and create beauty in the landscape. Done right, with permaculture techniques, growing food can sequester carbon in the soil, addressing the problem of global warming.

And of course Broadforks are really helpful if you want to grow food without plowing or tilling.

Cider Tour: Finnriver

We took an overnight up the Quimper penninsula to Chimacum and Port Townsend to get away and visit cideries, starting with Finnriver in Chimacum. Chrystie was incredibly nice to us, the tasting room is beautiful, and the cider is AWESOME. We'd tasted the black currant cider in Seattle and were excited to get some to bring home.

Christie offered the dry and delicious pear sparkling cider -- it's would be great with dinner. For an apertif, or a sweet fiend like me, add a drop of pear wine with apple brandy.  Wonderful. My favorite is currently sold  as "spirited apple wine." It tastes like an excellent, applish port, but apparently it can't be called port for abstruse liquor-law reasons. We bought a bottle and I had a drop before my evening bath. We call it Not-Port.

Chimacum is beautiful and the food/cider/farm scene around there flourishing. We talked to many enthusiastic participants, and enjoyed abundant locally-grown food and drink.

A Good Start in Broadforking

A customer sent us this charming picture of an 18-month-old getting a head start on the broadfork.  He seems to be having a good time. Whee!

We've been reading Will Allen's terrific The Good Food Revolution, which puts the urban gardening movement in the context of his own life, his family's story, and the larger picture of the Great Migration of African American people from the South to the North. I really appreciated his historical perspective on how the move north, for many people, exchanged one set of problems for another, including the loss of a direct connection to the land and the ability to grow and eat healthy food. Allen's work is so inspiring -- he's learned to grow food in a northern, industrial city, recruit people to get involved in farming, and teach people about composting, tilapia growing, beekeeping, keeping chickens... His organization Growing Power really does grow like a weed, like a bean plant, like a blackberry bramble -- spreading, growing new roots, starting seeds everywhere.

The urban food movement might be the most hopeful thing now happening in our culture. It's a direct response to problems of unemployment and poverty, diet-related health problems like diabetes and heart disease, and the consolidation of our food system by a few multinational corporations. Growing our own food -- from rural farms to city lots and rooftops -- is as revolutionary as it gets. Also nonviolent, healthy, and fun!

Urbs in Horto

One of the coolest things that has changed in Chicago in recent years is the proliferation of street gardens, both in yards and in the planting strip between the sidewalk and street. Lots of folks grow native plants, prairie plants, flowers to attract butterflies and bees... On Michigan Avenue there are big planting strips with spectacular plants, monarch butterflies -- I've seen huge dragonflies zooming over the traffic. When I was a kid those strips were basically grass, mulberry trees, and dog crap. It's exciting to see the potential of the "city in a garden," Urbs in Horto, coming to fruition.

Allen Ginsberg wrote in 1975 "Written on Hotel Napkin: Chicago Futures";

Wind mills churn on Windy City's
         rooftops              Antennaie
               collecting electric
above thick-loamed gardens
         on Playboy Tower
Merchandise Mart's compost
                                   privies
        supply nightsoil for Near North Side's
                                  back gardens...
...
bathtub beer like the old days
Backyard Mary Jane like
                                 old days...

 * * *
and see, it's all coming true!